University of Illinois emeritus professor Robert Weissberg published an essay this week with the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a right-wing think tank, in which he argues about the Salaita case: “The trustees are not guilty of violating free speech; their sin is cowardice in overseeing the faculty. They did not perform their job.” It certainly takes some hubris for an openly racist professor who was never punished by the University of Illinois to complain that the trustees have failed to punish offensive left-wing faculty.

I want to refute Weissberg’s attacks on Salaita later on in this blog, but first I should state that the Pope Center had invited me to submit an essay along with Weissberg, and I wrote one for them.

Noting that Weissberg had spoken at a conference of white supremacists, I wrote in that essay: “I think that Weissberg’s views are far more…